I enjoyed this poem. I thought the tone of the piece was entertaining, and it was just long enough to create vibrant imagery while still allowing the reader to fill in the blanks.

No specific suggestions for improvement.

Overall, this was an enjoyable read. Nice work!

I enjoyed this story. I thought the premise was great, and it was an entertaining read all the way through.

The first paragraph felt a little dense. With a single block of text, it slows the read down and undercuts what's otherwise a really dynamic and active introduction to the story. I'd recommend some paragraph breaks to increase the pace with which the reader is dropped into the story.

Overall, I thought you did a solid job with this story. Nice work!

I really enjoyed this poem. I find poetic forms like the nonet quite challenging, but also quite fun to play around with, and I think you did an excellent job adapting your piece to the forum. The imagery in the poem is great, and I particularly like the juxtaposition of the fall/winter holidays.

For me the last line felt like a bit of a throwaway. I know it can be really difficult to find a one-syllable word that fits the structure of the piece, but in this case it felt more tacked on than an integral part of the content of the poem. I would have loved for this last line, often the most impactful moment you'll have on the reader, to have some deeper connection or sense of continuity to the rest of the poem.

Overall, I think you did a solid job with this piece. It was a great topic, good presentation, and I think you were able to take a difficult poetic form and have some real fun with it. Thanks for sharing an enjoyable holiday piece about monsters celebrating more than just Halloween!

I really enjoyed this essay. As someone who took martial arts for years and stopped just short of his black belt, I think you did a great job capturing a lot of the philosophy and mindset that go into the discipline. Nice work!

No specific suggestions for improvement.

Overall, I thought this item was great. Well done!

The worldbuilding was interesting and well-developed. I like the fact that there's so much detail involved in this world.

The story felt a bit expository in the sense that, beyond the worldbuilding, there isn't a lot of character development or narrative. I would have been great to see a story set in this world play out a little more.

Overall, this was an entertaining read. Nice work!

I thought you did a good job of structuring this item, and I like the message of the piece. Using anger/rage can be a powerful motivator, as long as it doesn't consume you.

No specific suggestions for improvement.

Overall, I enjoyed this item. Nice work!

I really enjoyed reading your poem. I thought you did a great job with the imagery and the structure. It read very smoothly and had a great message to it.

No specific suggestions for improvement.

Overall, this was an entertaining, impactful read. Nice work!

I really enjoyed this poem. I thought you did a great job with the imagery and the descriptive language; it made for a powerful and engaging read.

No specific suggestions for improvement.

Overall, I thought you did a great job with this piece. Nice work!

I really enjoyed this flash fiction story. The description was well-rendered and evocative, and the story has a great hook to keep the reader invested.

No specific suggestions for improvement.

Overall, I really enjoyed this story. Nice work!

I really enjoyed this poem. I thought the structure and the imagery were especially good. It was a well-paced, engaging piece of poetry.

No specific suggestions for improvement.

Overall, this was a really enjoyable, well-written poem. Nice work!

I really liked the visual language in this piece. It was evocative and made for a quick, engaging read.

I think a few more specifics would be helpful for the clarity of this piece. While the sentences and structure are elegant, it almost feels like this piece is talking around something, or speaking in generalizations. Some clarity or focus would help hone this piece a bit.

Overall, this was an entertaining read. Nice work!

You did a great job laying out your opinion on the use of AI here on Writing.com. I particularly like that you tied it into an actual experience you had with an entrant to one of your contests using AI. It added a layer of authenticity to the piece that - had it not been included - might have made the piece seem more like a random opinion rather than the informed opinion of someone who has experience in this area. Nice work!

I do think there's a bit of a conflict in the types of AI you're describing in your article. There have been a lot of conversations about use of AI on this site, but most people aren't arguing against the use of AI for things like proofreading, translating, etc. (the latter of which is the example you cite). Those uses of AI are less controversial than the "big issue" in AI that most people have, which is using LLMs to actually create content and write it for you, rather than using it to translate what you've already written. I'd be interested to know your thoughts on that use of AI, and whether simply mentioning that AI was used to write a contest entry itself is something that you would support. All of this goes a bit beyond the scope of the piece as written, but it might be worth addressing the parts of AI use that most people are talking about.

Overall, I thought this was a well-written and well-presented article on the use of AI for the purposes of proofreading or translating your existing work. I'd be curious to also know your thoughts on using AI to create writing!

I really liked the message of your piece. I think it's important encouragement that everybody would benefit from hearing.

I would have loved to have read a little more in this piece. It was brief enough to be almost a newsfeed post or quick blog entry, but as a static item in your portfolio there's a ton of room to expand on the idea and flesh it out a bit. I would love to see more of this type of encouragement!

Overall, I really enjoyed the read. Nice job!

I think you did a great job with this item and capturing the feeling of struggling with a weighty issue that you bring with you into a relationship. Whether it's mental health, addiction, a troubled past, etc. the baggage we bring with us into a relationship can be a lifelong struggle to manage.

This was labeled as a poem, so the prose approach to writing things out kind of threw me for a bit. I think it might be better classified as some type of prose, or have a little context provided about what poetic structure you're trying to follow.

Overall, I thought this was a solid item and I definitely identify with the struggle of bringing difficult issues into a relationship. In my experience, finding the right person means finding someone who loves you as you are, baggage and all. It might be a third party in your relationship, but Mr. (or Ms.!) right will be the person who's willing to accept that third party and will love you either way.

The detail and description in this story was great. In just a handful of sentences, you did a good job of creating a vivid setting.

I noticed a tendency to switch between past and present tenses from sentence to sentence. I'd recommend a quick proofread to address those issues.

Overall, I really enjoyed the read. Nice work!

I thought you did a great job with the sensory detail in your item. It was easy to visualize the setting and the circumstances, which is due almost entirely to your great job of adding enough description to create a vivid image in the reader's mind. Nice job!

No specific suggestions for improvement.

Overall, I really enjoyed this piece. Well done!

This item was a fun read. I think the musicality of the soundalike words throughout the piece, which gave everything a fluid, fast-paced feel.

It's a little unclear what the purpose of this prose is... if it was meant to be persuasive, informative, meant to evoke certain emotions or see something a certain way. I found myself looking for intent behind the piece that was difficult to discern.

Overall, I thought this was an enjoyable item that was entertaining to read. Nice job!

I enjoyed the creativity of this piece. The idea of being pulled inside a newspaper comic (and then escaping) was clever and fun to follow along with.

It felt like there were a few too many unnecessary details in the opening paragraph that didn't really move the narrative forward. In a piece this short, every word is essential, and for me it felt like the story took a while to get started because of the overemphasis on setup and exposition.

Overall, this was a fun read and I really enjoyed it. Nice work!

I really enjoyed this take on the image prompt. It felt like the real opening to a book, one that created a setting and a clear image of what's going on, but also promised something much more in the final words. I love this contest, but I often find that people write solely to the prompt (i.e., it's a good couple-sentence response to the picture prompt itself, but it doesn't really work as a story starter), and in this case I think you managed the difficult feat of accomplishing both. It's a great prompt response and, in the absence of the image, a great story starter on it's own. That's not easy to do... well done!

I don't have any specific suggestions for improvement. I think you did a really great job with this item as-is.

Overall, this was an excellent contest entry and a story starter that would, independently of the contest, definitely hook me on the book it was written for. Really impressive work on this contest entry!

I loved the structure and the imagery in this poem. It was evocative, powerful, and really elegant. Great work!

No specific suggestions for improvement.

Overall, I thought you did a great job with this poem. It was a lot of fun to read. Well done!

Writing stories with fewer than 120 words is a real challenge, and I think you managed to do a good job of telling a complete, cohesive story in so few words. The details were enough to paint a clear picture without including so much that it bogged the story down.

While acknowledging that you don't have a ton of space to work with to create a lot of context or backstory, I did find myself with a few questions, like how Lizzie had lured Suzie (presumably a child she had an antagonistic relationship with) to an old shed, and why she was there "basking in the glorious spray of blood" all day long. Just a few extra details or some additional context would help the reader better envision this story, I think.

Overall, I really enjoyed reading this story. You did a great job creating a horror story with an extreme word count limit and managed to make it engaging and interesting all the way through. I think there's some room for improvement, but you have a great foundation and are off to an excellent start. Well done!

I thought you did a good job capturing the paranormal element of the story, and instilling it with a tone that matches the genre. Atmosphere can be a difficult thing to capture in so few words, but I think you did a good job here. I also think the brevity of the piece worked to its benefit, keeping the pace moving along.

The repetition of the dialogue didn't really work for me. It can sometimes be an effective way of accentuating a point or emphasizing the drama of a particular sentiment, but four instances of the same line felt a bit like overkill, as did using the device twice in such a short story. I think you would have had the same effect with one line of repetition, or possibly even none at all.

Overall, this was an entertaining read and the good start to a story. I understand from the note at the bottom that you won't be continuing it, which is totally fine, but I think you did get off to a great start with it and have a solid foundation upon which to build if you were so inclined. Nice job!